Dressed in White, Part 2: Hurry Back to Bell End

Trooay sat motionless on the rooftop across from the studio where Dr. Richard Enbalz, a.k.a. the Roddler, hosted his weekly public access television show, staring at the building through a pair of binoculars. Were it not for the occasional very slight rise and fall of his body as he breathed, one could mistake him for a wax figurine. In fact, he was lying so motionless that his entire cigarette--including the filter--was a column of ash. Eventually, the radio placed on the ground next to his head crackled as the voice of Diana Trillion came over the line: "Jim...can you see me?"

Grunting and coughing as the ashes from his former cigarette dusted his face, Trooay shifted his weight and picked up the radio. "Yes Diana...now try to be cool over there. We can't afford to blow this chance." Having already changed position, Trooay took the opportunity to fish another cigarette from his rapidly dwindling pack.

"You shouldn't smoke so much, Jim," Diana said in a surprisingly girlish tone over the radio, "or you'll never be able to run Mr. Dentist down." If Trooay didn't know better, he might have thought that she was flirting. As it was, he decided to remind her what their angle was.

"Never mind my health, Diana. Leave that to Dr. Oceania. Just remember what we're here for. This is our best chance to catch Enbalz after more than three months of staking him out. We still don't have any idea what that cryptic piece of info O'Danahan snagged means. And especially after what happened to O'Danahan..." Trooay's voice trailed off as he remembered finding the corpse of his friend, pasted to the front of the DCPD building with a thick, viscous shellac and a cruel note: "It'll take more than one man to rub out...The Roddler!"

"Jim...Jim, are you okay?" Diana asked, shaking Trooay out of his dark reverie.

"Yes, I'm fine. Just...be careful, alright?"

"You know I will, Jim. I'll radio you again once I'm in position outside Dr. Enbalz's office. The show starts in less than an hour, so he's got to be finalizing his plan."

In truth, Trooay couldn't have been more pleased with Trillion's efforts over the past month. After O'Danahan's untimely demise, the Chief had decided--over Trooay's objections--that a woman would be able to get closer to the heart of Enbalz's conspiracy. Diana had then transformed herself from the perpetually disheveled librarian that Trooay had always seen into a downright sexy Bad Secretary. Unfortunately, the doctor's tastes ran in another direction and Trillion had to redo her disguise so that she looked like the Brawny lumberjack. Still, that Secretary look had rekindled something in Trooay...

"Jim! I hear something...it sounds like Dr. Enbalz is coming out...of his office! I'm going to trail him to the studio." Trooay then heard the muffled sounds of Diana greeting Dr. Enbalz and small talk as they walked to the television studio. He thought he heard the word rocket...and he definitely heard something about Bell End. Diana then opened the channel so that Trooay could clearly hear Enbalz's effeminate Southern Drawl: "Well Rufus, I have to...hurrah back to Bell End now..." he chuckled softly. "But you just think about our little chat today, eh?"

Silence.

Trooay waited for what felt like an eternity before Trillion came back. "Jim...I think we have enough to blow this thing wide open...and you'll never believe what he's planning...Jim, it's horrible, he's going to launch mil--AHHHHH!"

Trooay jumped up as Diana's scream was cut off by Enbalz coming over her radio: "Trooay, did you really think I'd be fooled by your little girl here? I used to make a livin' spottin' Adam's apples in the back alleys of N'awlins. Now, if you want your little spy here back, you're just gonna have to come in here and get her." Trooay heard Diana curse and shout over the sound of the Roddler's screeching laughter as Enbalz and his goons slapped her around.

"Dammit Dick Enbalz!!! I'm going to drown you in a pool of fluid if it's the last thing I do!!" bellowed the detective. He then dropped his radio in disgust and walked back toward the door that would take him into the stairwell and down to his car on the streets below. Pulling out his cell phone, he called the chief.

"Chief, it's Trooay. That son of a bitch took Diana...he's holding her hostage...you won't believe--"

"Trooay, I'm watching it now! He just broadcast all that on his TV show!! Now listen to me, you loose cannon, you just wait for the backup to get there. Chances are he's got that place booby trapped six ways to Sunday, plus we still have a team undercover at Bell End! Don't put them in jeopardy! So, Trooay, you just STAY PUT!"

"Chief, we both know that staying put isn't what I do," Trooay said through gritted teeth as he stubbed out his cigarette and took off his hat and jacket. "And I wouldn't worry about sending any backup here. Just send a hearse."

"Trooay, I'm warning you--" the chief screamed, but it was too late. On a rooftop across Docks City, Jim Trooay had already hung up his cell phone, donned his sunglasses and pulled out the biggest, blackest pistol this side of the Rio Grande.

"There's only two rules in this world... you never hit a woman...and you DON'T FUCK WITH JIM TROOAY!!!!" These last words tore out of the hero's lungs as he ran toward the edge of the building and leapt toward the TV studio, firing his gun in the air like the biggest, blackest boner ever to have existed.

The Chief, whirling about in a frenzy of action ordered his team to storm Bell End and called for every available unit to make tracks for the Enbalz studio. He turned his attention to the screen to see the Roddler, clothed in a skin-tight green costume with unambiguously phallic white exclamation points decorating various areas. He held a long, slender revolver trained on Diana Trillion's bruised frame in the background. Oddly, however, she didn't appear to be restrained. Turning the volume up, the chief heard Enbalz's voice on the air--

"--and last, I want it all delivered by a team of youngboys! Now, unless Docks City complies with this, I will unleash my fiendishly clever new biological weapon--THE MILK ROCKET!"

With this, the screen cut to a long shot of Bell End Mansion as the domed end of the giant observatory that topped the house opened, revealing a bulbous rocket. "Oh Goddammit!" the chief shouted, just as--

--Trillion suddenly leapt into action, knocking the Roddler's gun away and delivering a kick to his groin. "Eeeeyah!" he shouted, literally chasing vomit off the TV screen, at the same time as--

--Trooay burst through the windows of the television station, his last two shots incapacitating the cameraman and one of the Roddler's goons. By the time he shook off all the glass, however, the Roddler--

--had recovered enough to shout for his producer to switch back to the Bell End shot and depress the button on the remote in his hand. A plume of smoke billowed from the mansion as the Milk Rocket rode a silver stream into the cerulean twilight of Docks City. Meanwhile--

--the Chief saw the launch on TV and heard a report from his team at Bell End as they finished storming the mansion and overwheming the Roddler's guards. Just as this report was finished, the Chief noticed the TV show had returned to the studio, showing Diana Trillion savagely beating the Roddler as he bawled in terror. As this was happening--

--Trooay sprinted into the control room and judo chopped the producer, throwing him into a bank of computers which effectively ended the telecast. As the cameras went black--

--the Chief shoved himself into his sedan, driving over a hundred to get downtown to the TV station with all the other officers, all of whom heard--

--the high pitched scream of the Milk Rocket as it hurtled back toward the Earth, apparently aimed directly for the television station, where--

--Trooay, seeing what was happening, rushed from the control booth and slapped the now quite hysterical Dr. Enbalz from Trillion's fierce grasp, sweeping her out the broken window which had provided his entrance to the room, just as--

--the Milk Rocket shattered the roof of the studio, ejaculating a noxious mixture of gooey liquid into the studio while Trooay and Trillion slid down the outside of the building to safety.


Two hours later, as the DCPD, paramedics, and emergency services cleaned the scene up and vaccumed up the spent mess of the Rocket, Trooay and Trillion stood talking to the Chief, his mouth once again filled with a cigar.

"Goddammit you two...you've caused millions of dollars in damage here with your reckless behavior! I have half a mind to reassign you both to the Pawn Shop Squad!"

"Well, Chief, the way I see it, you owe us. We foiled the Milk Rocket plot and destabilized the Dentist network in the city, while capturing one of his top lieutenants. I'd say that's a pretty good haul," said Trillion, smiling.

The Chief grumbled softly "Ahh, you're both alike. If you weren't such damn good cops I'd..." With this, the old man took his perfectly square body across the street to supervise cleanup operations. Trooay and Trillion both laughed as they noticed a stretcher coming out of the building, carrying the soaked body of the Roddler.

"Well, Dick, you really ended up covered in your own jeezum this time," taunted Trooay.

"This isn't ovah yet, Jim, not by a long--oh God, keep her away from me! AHHHH!" shrieked Enbalz, as Trillion snuck in yet another blow to the doctor. "We'll see about that, Dick," Trooay replied, "And I'm coming to visit you in the hospital. I'll bring you some flowers...or how about a nice veggie basket? You like cucumbers, right??"

Enbalz groaned as the pair turned away from him. "You know, Diana," Trooay said with a light in his eyes that hadn't been there for years, "We make a pretty good team."

"We?" she laughed. "I did all the work there. You just broke a window and some monitors."

"I guess you're right," responded Trooay. "You didn't need saving. The Roddler did. But, ah, Diana...you know, I'd kiss you right now, if you weren't still dressed like a lumberjack and looking exactly like my old gym teacher."

"Jim," she said, "You're going to have to loosen up." And with that she grabbed him and pressed her lips to his, her fake mustache making him sneeze.

And that is how two men ended up kissing in a pool of white liquid on the Docks City Six O'Clock News.

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Oh my! What an exciting adventure! Romance, intrigue, action, and viscosity! Where will the Trooay/Trillion relationship go?!? How will the city pay for the damages?? Which nefarious lieutenant of Mr. Dentist's criminal underworld will be the next to fall???

FIND OUT NEXT TIME!!!